Outer Limit Software (OLS) was a TI-Basic programming group for the TI-83+ graphing calculator, and they released several quality programs and games. It merged with three other TI sites — CalcBasic, Cirrus Programming, and Prokul Interactive — to form United-TI (UTI), an extremely active and popular TI community site. Their flagship game, Contra 83, was released jointly by Outer Limit Software and United-TI.

Group Significance

Their most notable game was Contra 83, a remake of the classic NES platformer of the same name. The game features six multi-screen levels, enemies, weapon upgrades, three difficulty levels, bosses, a high score system, and saving/loading. The speed and gameplay is quite fast, as each new screen loads in mere seconds. There was a level editor under development, but it was never released to the public.

It was one of the biggest achievements in pure TI-Basic, as it used no assembly libraries or utilities just strictly good old-fashioned TI-Basic. The game also proved that TI-Basic games can be fun and enjoyable, and that a game doesn't need to be written in assembly. The game was even featured on ticalc.org in a news article.

Andrew Tobin was working on a remake of the old Atari classic Pitfall. Graphics will be incredible with the help of Omnicalc. Definitely to be by best work yet. Originally I was going to attempt to add just about every aspect of the Atari Pitfall to my 83+ version. Considering that is pretty unreasonable in a BASIC game I have instead decided that I will drop most of the potentially speed reducing aspects of it. I am still debating on what exactly I will be taking out but have a pretty good idea of what they will be.

Site Screenshot

(Screenshot of Group homepage circa year)

Group History

Outer Limit Software was started by Bryan Thomas and Andrew Tobin in 1999. In 2003, the group and some other TI sites merged together and formed United-TI (UTI), which was a large community-driven forum and IRC channel.

On July 24, 2003, Outer Limit Software and Polar Computer, Inc. decided to merge together. The OLS name was kept, along with all three members of Polar Computer, Inc. joining.